Risk Transfer Arrangements and the Distress or Cancellation of Public-Private Partnership Infrastructure Projects in Developing Countries: The Moderating Role of Government Guarantees

This record contains the manuscript and supporting materials for a study examining the association between risk transfer arrangements and the likelihood and timing of distress or cancellation among public-private partnership (PPP) infrastructure projects in developing countries, together with the moderating role of government guarantees. Grounded in agency theory, the study analyzes project-level data on 8,742 PPP infrastructure projects that reached financial closure between 1990 and 2024 across 140 developing countries, obtained from the World Bank Private Participation in Infrastructure (PPI) Database. Methods include logistic regression with country-clustered standard errors, moderation analysis, Kaplan–Meier estimation, and sector-stratified Cox proportional hazards models. Results indicate that greater risk transfer to private parties is positively associated with distress or cancellation, that government guarantees exhibit a strong protective association, and that guarantees significantly attenuate the adverse association of risk transfer, with the hazard concentrated in the first eight operational years.